Establishing New Workstyles Through DX— NEC Digital Workplace —Masako Imanishi

Senior Manager
Digital Business Offering DivisionNEC Corporation

1. Digital transformation of workstyles

A great reset of workstyles is now needed: from “workconduciveness” to “job satisfaction.” Aiming to create workstyles
that enable employees to demonstrate higher performance,
NEC is promoting new workstyles that combine real and online
and pursuing workstyle DX to create workplaces that generatebusiness.
NEC aims to create social value by “creating workstyles toenable everyone to play an active role,” “creating an exciting daily
life for everyone,” and “creating experiences that go beyond time ordistance.” “NEC Digital Workplace” contributes to making this areality.
In the midst of the global scale digital shift of society triggeredby the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are expected to havethe flexibility to respond to changes in the way their employees
work. I will talk about the challenges companies face to ensure
flexibility and NEC’s services related to workstyle DX that will
help companies address these challenges.

2. The global digital shift is changing the way
people work.

With the unabated spread of COVID-19, there have been
many instances around the world where the movement of people
and things have been physically cut off due to restrictions on goingout and moving around, lockdown of cities, and closure of borders.
Meanwhile, the volume of Internet traffic in Japan has
increased by 49% compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic,
and demand for semiconductors for data centers increased in theUnited States, pointing to the rapid digital shift of society.
This digital shift has brought about significant changes inindividuals, society, and the economy.
Personal values have changed, while security and safety in thedigital space have become imperative in society. Looking at theeconomy, we see cross-industry restructuring and global alliances
taking place at an increasing pace. The digital shift will continue
to bring about various changes around the world. In response,
companies must have the flexibility to adapt to these changes.
They can achieve this through the use of DX technologies such as
AI, robots, and 5G.
The digital shift in society will also have a significant impact
on the way individuals work. In her book “The Shift: The Futureof Work is Already Here,” Linda Gratton, who also served on theadvisory board for the U.K. government’s “100-year Life Plan,”claims that there will be three changes in the way people work in
2025.
The first is a shift from generalist human resources withwide-ranging knowledge to “continuous specialists” with a highdegree of expertise. Second, there will be a need for innovation incollaborations with colleagues and partners, rather than a solitarycompetition for individual achievements.
The third is a shift from the idea of “working for
consumption” to the idea of “being passionate about work itself.”
NEC has already taken steps to respond to these changes.

3. An environment that fosters “jobsatisfaction” as well as “workconduciveness”

NEC has been promoting various initiatives related to culturaltransformation since 2018. Among these are office reforms,introduction of the super-f lex system, and establishment oftelework environment. As a result, our telework rate as of August2021 has reached 85%, with 31,000 web meetings being held eachday, pointing to major changes in the way our employees work.
Results of employee surveys also show that the degree of workstylesatisfaction has improved significantly.
T hese initiatives, however, focus on ly on “workconduciveness,” pointing to the need to also delve on initiatives
that enhance employee’s sense of “job satisfaction,” going forward.
To create an environment in which “working itself becomes awonderful experience,” we must carry out a shift in the workof employees into higher value-added work that robots and AI
cannot perform.
By letting robots and AI, as much as possible, performstandardizable tasks, employees will be able to focus on advanced
management decisions and creative work. This should enable
employees to feel a sense of “job satisfaction” to a much higher
degree. Therefore, it is imperative to analyze and utilize various
data, not only technologies such as robots and AI.
From this perspective, NEC has launched the “NECDigital Workplace” as a corporate infrastructure for proactively
utilizing data in addition to technology. We will aim to solve
social issues while enabling our employees to work autonomously
to demonstrate their creativity and produce better results. The
concept of “NEC Digital Workplace” is to serve as the foundation
for becoming such a company. As the roadmap to achievethis, NEC hopes to establish workstyles that take health andNew Breeze Spring 202313

psychology into consideration, based on safety and security under
the impact of COVID-19, and ultimately nurture a workplace
where individuals and organizations can grow significantly.

4. Services that NEC provides to establish
new workstyles

Among the services provided through NEC Digital
Workplace, I will explain in particular those that are related toAI utilization, AI human resource development, data-drivenmanagement, and initiatives for human resource transformation.
■ AI Utilization
NEC Digital AssistantWith the uptake of telework among companies, sometimes
detailed operations, like coordination of meetings, expense
settlement procedures, and personnel-related inquiries, cannot
be carried out smoothly, adversely affecting the performance ofprimary tasks.
The AI chatbot “NEC Digital Assistant” enables employees
to make chat-based requests for AI to perform such detailedoperations. Since AI learns the chat interactions, it can make
optimal recommendations and give accurate answers in response
to variously worded questions.

■ Data-Driven Management
Workstyle Visualization & Reform Support Service
When implementing new workstyles, existing rules sometimes
do not fit the reality. However, it is difficult to obtain internal
consensus on measures based on individual perceptions andopinions. In such cases, supplementation with quantitative andobjective data would be necessary.
In the “Workstyle Visualization & Reform Support
Service,” experienced consultants conduct quantitative analysisof issues based on Office 365 log information to formulate atransformation roadmap. Flagging human resources considered as“high performers” enables analysis of their differences with otheremployees.

■ Development of AI Human Resources
NEC Academy for AI
After the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have been
increasingly faced with the need to deal with curtailment ofexisting businesses and to implement further measures in response
to digitalization and the shift to online activities. However, thelack of highly skilled professionals and know-how has become abottleneck.

Utilization of Causal Analysis Technologies (AI, etc.)
While the evolution of technology has made it possible tocollect a variety of data, utilizing large amounts of data often leadto problems related to the time required for analysis and variationsin interpretation.
Using a causal analysis solution, for example, enables
automatically generating and presenting causal structures after
analyzing causal relationships, logic of things, and contextual■ Figure 1: NEC Digital Workplace

14“NEC Academy for AI” is a service provided by NEC to giveback to society by offering the training methodologies NEC hasdeveloped in the field of AI.
The service classifies the target personnel into four types:
Coordinator, Consultant, Expert, and Architect, and develops
programs for each type. One of the features of the service is thatit does not only support the acquisition of knowledge, but also
conducts follow up on dealing with practical barriers that mayarise later.

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structures hidden in data, which cannot be understood by looking
at correlations alone.
This technology is attracting attention because it can beapplied not only to the analysis of products and services, but also to
the analysis of employee engagement.
Pattern Data Utilization Platform
As the life cycles of products and services are getting shorter,
the traditional flow of introduction after a long design process canlead to delays in market entry.
To prevent these delays, NEC provides a “Pattern Data
Utilization Platform” with only the minimum number offunctions. The system can be expanded any time depending on
the situation, enabling quick deployment of new businesses.
Business & Data-Driven Agile Partner Service
As mentioned above, all areas of business are being carried out
at faster speeds, and corporate budgeting trends are changing.
The inability to speedily deploy business with conventional
budget formulation, wherein budget is allocated from the previous
fiscal year and used up in the following year, has become aproblem. There are thus more companies raising funds in a moreagile way.
The “Business & Data-Driven Agile Partner Service” waslaunched after examining what NEC can do as an IT vendor toaddress these customer issues.
The service organizes the KGIs/KPIs of the customer’sbusiness and incorporates the specific functions that are actuallynecessary to improve the KPIs into the design, before proceedingwith development. The process usually requires advanced IT andbusiness skills for determining the functions necessary to achieve
KPIs, but the service makes it possible to also provide the humanresources equipped with the necessary skills.
■ Initiatives to Transform Human Resources
Support Service for Developing a Framework for Human
Resource Transformation
As the demand for human resources is shifting fromgeneralists to specialists, there is a pressing need for companies totake relevant human resource measures, such as securing digitaltalents and introducing job-based management.
In NEC’s organizational human resources assessment,
experienced consultants study the client’s strategic systemsand measures in the human resources domain, identifies theissues to address, and supports the creation of a roadmap fortransformation. Clarifying the competencies that are essential
to the job (= job description) through the service will enablemaximizing existing human resources, as well as securing theneeded external human resources.

5. NEC’s services help customers accelerate
their workstyle DX and expand theirbusiness.

In addition to the services mentioned above, NEC isdeveloping other services that leverage the strengths of various
technologies, such as security, zero trust, cloud shift, and 5G.
Companies need to be able to respond quickly to the majorchanges taking place worldwide. NEC provides strategic
consulting services for HR organizational transformation andother needs, as well as DX services that fully leverage AI andautomation technologies supporting data-driven management. We
are committed to contributing to the acceleration of workstyle DX
and business expansion of our customers.

■ Figure 2: NEC Digital Workplace Offering Menu

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